


Surge

by shadowcat500



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: I Mean I Think I Did I Actually Have No Recollection Of Writing This, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Surprisingly Coherent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-20
Updated: 2018-03-20
Packaged: 2019-04-05 08:02:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14039784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadowcat500/pseuds/shadowcat500
Summary: A girl, attempting to impress airbenders, uses airbending moves to firebend.





	Surge

**Author's Note:**

> I have no recollection of writing this, but it is surprisingly coherent.
> 
> This will likely never be updated, so yeah.
> 
> (title is Surge as in pyroclastic surge)

She has seen them, air swirling round their feet and arms and had tried _so hard_ to copy their movements, sparks and swirls of flames covering her tanned hands with glowing light, leaving tiny burned spots that she didn't even notice because she'd _done it_ , she'd used airbending to bend flames.

***

When she's shown them, desperate for the respect of an _airbender _to be given to a common firebender, their carefree gazes had clouded over like a hurricane covering a summer sky.  
They had stolen the air from the grip of her flame and her lungs, and she'd barely heard the sound of their warning that they were airbending moves, not for firebenders, not for _her_ and they'd walked off with disdain filling the air behind them like the tide as she choked on regained air. She'd stared after them with hatred in her eyes and she silently made a promise: She would bend air. She didn't care if it took a hundred years or a hundred lifetimes, she would place as good if not a better claim to the element of air as they.__

__***_ _

__She'd spent the evening after her "promise day" as she'd eventually come to call it staring into the coals of the firepit as her mother cooked dinner. An idea had shot into her brain like lightning as she flew to her feet. She'd focussed her mind on the heat of the coals as she'd dug her feet into the ground and did her best to copy the forceful movements she'd seen of earthbenders from her textbooks on foreign nations. She'd barely heard the spoon her mother was using to stir clatter on the rim of the bowl as she dropped it in shock.  
"I-I..." She'd opened her eyes in surprise. The coal had stacked itself into a tower at her command, reaching out in the direction she had pointed in her poor attempt. "My daughter, able to bend earth like fire? An A-Avatar? But Avatar Roku's death was after your birth, child, how have you done this..."_ _

__***_ _

__She'd explained her trick to her mother, and begged her not to say a word to anyone in the village. Her mother had agreed, but begged her to be careful of the spirits' wrath.  
The next day, and the next, and the next and the next for almost a month, she'd tried again with the coals, repeating again and again, reheating and reheating until she commanded the burning rock as well as she did her fire.  
She'd been left bending the coal into patterns while she wondered how to adapt this bending into air. She'd been so close to figuring out something when she'd realized the flaw, and as she did her fist clenched and coal turned to inferno. She stared at the flames of the burning coal-tower, when she felt the smallest tug at her ribcage. 

__

__The girl stepped into the temple. Her steps echoed, making the spirit pause in her meditation. Brown-gold met blue and the Water Tribe girl paused immediately. "Oh, I um... I didn't mean to disturb you. I heard that there was a spirit and I hoped I could learn more about airbenders..."  
A soft smile crept over the firebender's face. "You have found her."_ _

___"You?! Spirits don't look this- aren't this- _normal__ ." The girl sputtered in shock as the spirit gestured to her to come over and sit down.  
"I am an exception."  
"So, uh, yeah, I came to learn about the airbenders..."  
The spirit's hands clenched into fists. "I am- a poor person to ask for an opinion of the airbenders."  
The waterbender (it was easy to tell, now that she was close) looked visibly confused. "But the village was so close to the temple. Didn't the Fire Nation and Air Nomads mix?"  
"Air was who _killed_ me." The statement hung in the air, and the spirit could /hear/ the waterbender's notions of air crash down around her.  
"Air- _killed you_ ?! But airbenders don't kill!"  
A bitter chuckle escaped the spirit's lips. "I suppose they didn't receive that lesson."  
"But Aang-" The girl stopped her sentence in its tracks and resolutely pressed her lips together.  
The spirit paused for a moment. "Aang? Who is Aang?"  
"A- a friend!" The girl was nervous, Aang was clearly a friend she was not supposed to have.  
The spirit was pondering this when a voice cut through the silence: "Katara! Where are you?"  
The girl sprang to her feet. "A-Aang! Don't come in!"  
But it was too late. 

___A child walked in. His head was bald, and arrow tattoos decorated his hands and bare forehead._  
Boiling air swirled round the spirit's tanned arms like the roiling waters of a pond someone had stuck two fists of flame in. The waterbender began to back away, but the airbender remained foolishly unaware of the fury of the firebending spirit.  
"Airbender." was the word spat out like poisoned fruit from between pale lips as brown-gold eyes narrowed. 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm pretty sure she figured out how to bend superheated air and was then killed for that by the airbenders.
> 
> May have been inspired by Embers by Vathara, an amazing and very well-researched work, that I highly suggest you read.
> 
> Have a great day/night!


End file.
